Fallible Authors unfolds another chapter in the author's life-
long exploration of the idea of medieval authorship. In a nutshell,
it takes up the perennial tension between the message and the
messenger in the realm of the spiritual. Its purpose is three-fold:
first, to explore fourteenth-century debates over clerical
fallibility, the inherent disconnect between the extensive powers
given to clerical offices and the limited, flawed nature of individual
men who fill them, debates which came to a head in the heresy of
Wycliffism; second, to apply the paradigms of clerical fallibility to
literary figures, using Chaucer's characters of the Pardoner and the
Wife of Bath as examples of fallible "authors"; third, to make the
case that while Chaucer participates fully and enthusiastically in
these popular debates, his association with Wycliffite ideas does not
make him guilty of Lollardy.

Minnis brings together in a single volume ideas that he has explored
in a series of interrelated essays published between 1991 and 2006.
The volume divides itself into two discussions of fallibility: moral
fallibility as it pertains to priestly service, and how those
discussions play themselves out in the character of Chaucer's Pardoner
(chapters 1 and 2), and gender as a form of fallibility, and how this
plays out in the example of Alisoun of Bath (chapters 3 and 4). It
also includes a 35-page introduction and over 100 pages of notes.

Chapter one concerns how the medieval Church interpreted and handled
moral fallibility among clergy and the potential consequences to
parishioners. To what extent does moral failing in a priest
compromise his ability to save souls? Minnis takes up this question
through discussions of an array of priestly functions including
preaching, administering sacraments, conducting mass, and dispensing
pardons. Drawing on preachers' handbooks and the works of various
continental and English theologians (including Peter Lombard, Thomas
Aquinas, Albert the Great, and Bonaventure), Minnis unfolds the many
permutations that clerical fallibility might take depending on the
nature of a priest's sin, the extent to which his sin was known (and
by whom), his own sense of contrition for the sin, the precise
priestly function in question (e.g. baptism, consecration of the
sacraments), and the extent of his personal desire to do good for his
congregation despite the sin. Minnis concludes that, despite
differences among theologians and churchmen, on the whole the medieval
Church separated the office of the priest from the office holder with
the reassuring consequence that the souls under the jurisdiction of an
immoral priest were not compromised through their association with
him. An immoral priest can deliver a moral message.

Minnis' discussion of priestly function also reveals several
unexpected exceptions to priestly intervention, exceptions that may
inform our understanding of some of Chaucer's characters. For
instance, according to Peter Lombard and others, in extreme
circumstances (in extremis, such as the imminent death of a
newborn), a layperson, even an old woman, a heretic, a schismatic, or
a non-Christian (e.g. a Jew) could administer the sacrament of
baptism.

With respect to the Canterbury Tales, Minnis has a lively
discussion of the "Canterbury indulgence," the indulgence instituted
for the shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, the destination of
Chaucer's pilgrims. Canterbury, it seems, did not want to miss out on
the indulgence system, since having one would bring significant
spiritual traffic and revenue to the cathedral. At the same time, the
validity of the Canterbury indulgence, as Minnis reveals, was not
without controversy, as one 15th-century treatise attributed to
Richard Godmersham attests. All of this sets the stage for Chaucer's
Pardoner, a deeply fallible man in the business of indulgences on his
way to Canterbury.

In Chapter 2, Minnis approaches the character of Chaucer's Pardoner
with an honest agenda: "...it is high time...that we recuperated the
idealism which marks the foundational theology of indulgences, its
affirmation of divine love and expression of religious communality and
mutuality" (103). Reacting against the Protestant readings of the
Pardoner that make up the bread and butter of criticism of this
particular Canterbury prologue and tale, Minnis makes the bold and
refreshing (and Catholic) argument that, in exposing religious
deviance in the figure of the Pardoner, Chaucer affirms, rather than
mocks, the orthodox religious ideals of the medieval Catholic church.

One way Minnis argues for the religious idealism underlying the
portrait of the Pardoner involves presenting one of the most detailed
cases for the Pardoner's professional transgressions. Where much of
the scholarship on the Pardoner, for instance, revolves around his
ambiguous status and function within the clerical hierarchy, Minnis
instead pinpoints his status precisely (or nearly precisely) as "a
layman or at best a man in minor orders" (118), a status that
completely disqualifies him for most of what he does, including
selling pardons, absolving sins, and preaching. Chaucer's Pardoner
acts "without legal warrant" in performing functions "properly
reserved for those in major orders" (118). While the church
authorized pardoners, to be sure, this particular Pardoner sets his
professional sights well above their legal limit. We cannot,
therefore, hold the Church accountable technically for the sins of
this single maverick, since there were rules in place designed to
prevent this very thing. On the flip side, contemporary theology and
ecclesiastical regulation indicate that the Pardoner acts well within
bounds when he claims that he, as an immoral man, can preach a moral
tale, and in this regard Minnis seems to want it both ways. He is
both more harsh and more forgiving in his reading of Chaucer's
Pardoner.

Another way Minnis asserts the religious idealism inherent in
Chaucer's portrait of the Pardoner concerns the copious theological
evidence he unearths for internal admonitions against, and controls
for, precisely the kind of religious racketeering the Pardoner
conducts. The Pardoner does not expose the corrupt nature of the
14th-century church; just the opposite. For example, "during the
1380's, warrants were issued to arrest persons mendaciously claiming
to be collecting alms for the Rounceval Hospital," the very hospital
with which the Pardoner affiliates himself (102). Similarly, the
Oxford Petition of 1414, a mere 14 years after Chaucer's death,
explicitly attacks the all-too-common practice of pardoners absolving
people from punishment and from guilt, and other forms of
fraud. Likewise, Minnis discusses Bishop John de Grandisson's 1356
condemnation of "impious questors" and those who facilitate them
(118). Thus Minnis makes a well-supported case that Chaucer's
scandalous portrait of the Pardoner places Chaucer himself squarely on
the side of the orthodox Church rather than in the camp of Wycliffite
heretics.

Minnis recuperates the proverbial "other side of the story" with
respect to indulgences, a practice that has long been synonymous with
church corruption. Departing from the common reading of indulgences
as a religious scam for easy money, Minnis defends the idealism
underlying the system. Looking to Bonaventure as an example, he
argues for the spiritual benefits for both the granter and the grantee
of the indulgence. Indulgences provided the recipient with a concrete
way to put penitential thought into action, to give outward form to an
inner process of contrition. For the granter, indulgences become a
form of sharing the burden of the sinner, and the money gained could
keep hospitals and schools in good repair to the benefit of the entire
community. This is an ideal, of course, and Minnis fully acknowledges
the gaps between ideal and practice, but he also asserts the church's
efforts to maintain the ideal and the considerable dissent within the
church itself regarding the sale of indulgences against a backdrop of
that ideal. He also notes the predicament they created for the church
(and the parishioners): if an indulgence is "recalled," so to speak,
the church loses authority and the parishioner loses the spiritual
benefit conferred. Thus the practice continued amidst ambivalence
within the Church. Not everyone will agree with the case for
indulgences argued in this book. Nevertheless, Minnis allows us to
hear again the medieval Catholic voice on this subject, a voice that
we must keep in the conversation, certainly those pertaining to the
Pardoner.

If Minnis magnifies the Pardoner's scandal in the matter of
professional practices, he reduces scandal in the matter of the
Pardoner's gender identity and sexual preference. On the one hand, he
applauds the contributions of queer theorists: "I do not want to be
misread as dismissing the possibility of homoerotic interpretation of
Chaucer's Pardoner" (147). He does not rule out the possibility of
homosexuality or bisexuality, but, he says, the Pardoner's
homosexuality "remains unproved" (158). On the other hand, he
suggests that medieval audiences and poets held less sharp
distinctions between heterosexual and homosexual lust, "misleading
modern binaries" (160). "Lust was lust" (147). More importantly,
Minnis rectifies certain misconceptions regarding the sexual and
marital status of eunuchs such as the Pardoner. According to at least
one body of contemporary opinion, a eunuch "was deemed capable of
marriage, both physically and legally" (151), even in the role of
producing offspring (154). Such a reading accords with the Pardoner's
own stated desire to cavort with women and even marry. In sum, Minnis
argues for a more inclusive understanding of the Pardoner's sexual
status, one less quick to categorize or damn one way or the other.

In chapter 3, Minnis takes up the question of female authority in
women's roles as teachers and, especially, preachers. First, he
explores the layers of Biblical and theological arguments that
prevented women from holding ecclesiastical office, and therefore
preaching in any official capacity. At the same time, he notes the
numerous ways women did assume spiritual authority in both Biblical
and in real life roles as prophetesses, teachers of the Gospel, and
abbesses presiding over female (and, in some cases, male) members of
the orders. In Chaucer's own day, women like Margery Kemp and Julian
of Norwich found ways to teach (and preach) despite being barred from
ecclesiastical office, Kemp repeatedly denying any association with
Wycliffite heresy.

Following his discussion of the orthodox scene on the question of
gender and preaching, Minnis turns to the Lollard scene of 14th-
century England. Here, he argues that contemporary scholars have
overstated the Lollard (Wycliffite) defense of women within the
Church. First, Minnis revisits John Wycliff's own writings, which
give sporadic and largely speculative attention to the question of
women clergy. Second, he turns to Wycliff's followers, men like
Walter Brut, whose views are gleaned largely from documents and
testimonials composed by their attackers who invariably exaggerate and
distort their actual views on a host of theological questions,
including women clergy. Third, he examines Lollard writings that
essentially agree with the orthodox position that women can substitute
for male clergy in extremis, and that women's sphere as
teachers belongs predominantly in the home with the young. He
concludes that, for all the credit the Lollards have received as
champions of women's rights in religious practice, there is very
little evidence that they a) envisioned a priesthood with regular
women clergy and b) gave women sustained theological prominence.
Their women mainly helped their men, as in the orthodox Church.

Chapter 4 is devoted to the Wife of Bath, and challenges a popular
reading of the Wife as a mouthpiece for Lollard doctrine. Scholars
have attributed her liberal attitudes towards marriage and sexuality,
and her brazen confidence in her own physical and intellectual
instincts, to Lollard beliefs on the supremacy of personal conscience
over institutional authority. This interpretive move stems, according
to Minnis, from a mistaken understanding of Wycliffite doctrine,
notably on the subject of marriage. First, the Wycliffites "had
little to say on the subject of marriage, while Chaucer had a lot to
say [through the Wife]" (294). Second, what little they did say seems
to validate marriage only for procreation, and openly permits
dissolving a union should it fail to produce young, a position that
could not be further from the practice of serial marriage without
progeny championed by Alisoun of Bath. Third, Alisoun draws more
heavily upon Jerome's (orthodox) Adversus Jovinianum than on
any specifically Lollard text. Fourth, she wages a "scholastic style
defense of sexual desire" (309). Finally, in the tale, Chaucer draws
upon the "moral advantages of vetularity" whereby women assume
genuine, sanctioned potential for authority, and drastically departs
from the crude literary stereotype of the vielle as found in
the Romance of the Rose. This chapter also contains a lively
analysis of the language Alisoun uses to describe body parts within
the context of medical vocabulary of the day as well as profanity. In
the prologue as well as the tale, Chaucer challenges two "despised
stereotypes" of his day: the sexually rapacious widow, and the
vetula or vielle (old woman), maneuvers that "decisively
separate Alisoun from her antifeminist ancestors" (309). Minnis
argues that Chaucer adheres strictly to none of the doctrines of the
day, radical or otherwise, but chooses his own way.

Minnis states his conclusion in writing Fallible Authors on p.
277: "'orthodoxy' should not be regarded as a monolithic and
determined structure which is devoid of contradiction, contestation,
and downright confusion." Though he admits to the severe restrictions
during the of period of the "heresy hunt" of Chaucer's day, Minnis
argues that the larger orthodoxy was more inclusive and pluralistic
than many like to believe, while Lollardy may have more in common with
Puritanism than with Romantic liberalism, certainly in the area of
love and marriage. Thus, while his arguments at times adhere to the
letter of the law of Catholic orthodoxy of Chaucer's day, sometimes
rigidly so, he demonstrates how the letter of the law was, in fact,
not always so rigid in the end. In this respect, Fallible
Authors seeks to restore scholarly and doctrinal balance in the
competing claims over the poetry, and indeed the soul, of Geoffrey
Chaucer.